


Knight of Heriox: Book of the Shadowed Sun

by JoAsakura



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Sex, Blood and Gore, M/M, lots and lots of alien sex, monsterfucky space porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 15,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: Outerspace sex magic bespoke murder monsterfuck adventures!Being the erotic adventures of one Tsedi Mys, Knight of the Heriox Imperium and his trusted Armiger, Valosh.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

__

_The five precepts are such:_

  1. _All that you are, and all that you may become, is a gift of the Imperius. Your actions are theirs, but know your dishonor is theirs as well. Live your life with honor._
  2. _Offer of yourself freely to the Garden, and in return, accept freely all gifts given in turn._
  3. _Your Maetror is to you as the Imperius is to the Maetror._
  4. _Retreat brings the greatest dishonor to the Imperius._
  5. _You hold the power of life and death within your grasp. Use that knowledge wisely._



_The three skills are as such:_

  1. _The Arts of Body_
  2. _The Arts of Mind_
  3. _The Arts of Self_



~~

The exilioshi princeling jackhammering his two ridged mating tubicles into Tsedi’s aching ass had been grunting like a herioxan mudfish for the last five minutes. Sweat wicking away from his body gleamed in diamond droplets on the thick, dark-rose hair covering his body, spattering against Tsedi’s bare, heaving belly as the exilioshi thrust again and again.

One tubicle drew nearly entirely out while the second one slammed deep into his guts, the dense hairs on the exilioshi’s thorax, grinding deliciously against the fragile flesh of a human cock. One set of clawed hands dug tight into Tsedi’s ankles, while another corseted his waist, and all eight of those wealthy eyes rolling in different directions.

It would have been so easy to lose himself in this, the exilioshi’s massive weight bearing down on him, the sensory overload of fur and sweat. Head snapped back and fingers tearing into silken sheets, his fragile human body quivering and helpless as his lover chanted above him how delicious it would be to eat him all up.

Tsedi was not the first human Mish Therx had tried to fuck to death, after all. Humans had been preferred concubines for Exiloshi and Imperiati ever since the first star-weary bumbling innocents stumbled their way into what they’d called Kepler-62, thousands of years ago.

Small and soft and surprisingly hardy, whatever skills and dreams humanity had thought they were going to enact in their new and distant home was overshadowed by the fact that their new homes were already occupied.

Through heavy eyes, Tsedi watched Mish Therx grunt and chant over him. The Imperium overlooked a certain amount of sexual cannibalism on the part of the Exilioshi Client Royals, but this one had developed an appetite beyond acceptable bounds, and it had quickly become a problem.

The Grand Imperius did not like problems.

Therx stiffened both tubicles slamming into Tsedi’s ass in one final blow, a veritable jet of semen filling his guts, and Tsedi arched into the movement, forcing down his own orgasm for the fifth time with the long practice of the Arts of Self. 

Taking Therx’s energy for his own, in the brief moment of utter vulnerability, Tsedi pulled himself up into the exilioshi’s lap and drove three fingers up through the soft meat under his mandibles. It took out Therx’s voicebox first, cutting off the scream in the first moment.

He didn’t stop until he hit brain, and then twisted his hand, teeth bared now as he rode the dead man to the floor and finally yanked part of Mish Therx’s brainstem out with his green-slicked forearm.

Panting, Tsedi shook some of the gore off his hand. Therx’s dead hands were still twitching on his waist and his dead cocks are still ejaculating gouts of exilioshi come into his ass. Slowly, he leaned forward, grinding down on the final shudders of the former son of the soon to be former Governor Regent of Mesxilos.

“Know me as Tsedi Mys, Chevalier of the First Flower and Guardian of Heriox. In the name of Cairan XII, Grand Imperius and Glorious Father to All, I sentence you, Mish Therx, to death,” Tsedi purred sweetly, wiping his hand clean on what was left of Therx’s face.

When the last quivering spurts finally passed, Tsedi eased himself off and touched the implant beneath the skin of his throat. “Hey, Valosh, he’s dead. I could use an exfil.”


	2. Chapter 2

Valosh pushed the doors to the princeling’s chamber open to find Tsedi shivering on the floor. The charge from Threx’s death throes had fled, and had left an aching hollow in their wake, echoing with the coiled power of his own banked sexual energy.

“Oh, shit.” The big imperati flung himself into the room, clattering in his bulky armor past the dead exilioshi. “Dead light, you do this every time, _giwif_.” His scolding tone stood in opposition to the tenderness with which he lifted the much smaller human with.

The imperiati had once called themselves the herioxeen, back before the days they’d mastered the power of the Needles, back before they’d mastered the entire star system those first human explorers had called Kepler-62. Valosh was twice as big in any direction than Tsedi, his thick, textured hide a faintly nacreous grey. He clacked his massive tusks as he set his partner on the blood-spattered bed. “You need to release,” he rumbled, one thick fingered hand splaying on Tsedi’s trembling belly.

“Not here,” Tsedi licked his lips, arching against Valosh’s touch before forcing it back down. _Art of Self. Control. Control. Control the power. Control yourself._ Maetror would be furious to see even the slightest need. “ _Gihus_ , please,” he croaked.

“Brat,” Valosh snorted. In one massive arm he cradled Tsedi’s shaking body, and with the other he triggered his rider. Needlespace folded around them, then blossomed open in the jump shuttle. His vision greying at the edges, Tsedi watched Valosh key the dampener field.

Every Chevalier had an Armiger. Regardless of the Chevalier’s species, an Armiger was always imperati. Part squire, part overwatch, part cleanup crew, the Armiger were the backbone of the Imperius’ shadow army.

The dampener prickled agains Tsedi’s overheated flesh and he caught sight of himself in the reflective panels that had dropped around them. His thick hair, iridescent green-violet, clung to his narrow jaw, and his pale, luminous flesh was spattered with drying exilioshi blood and semen. His own blood, too, he noticed with a scowl, as he looked down his legs. _Fucking Threx._

With almost comical gentleness, Valosh spread Tsedi’s legs, nuzzling his great, blunt muzzle between those blood-stained thighs. His tongue was thick and smooth, curling along tender, aching flesh and Tsedi let himself rock against the leathery flesh and the rough spatter of whiskers with a moan. The edges of Valosh’s tusks slid along either side of Tsedi’s cock as Valosh took him in his mouth. 

A human cock was such a small, frail thing compared to the massive beasts the imperiati had in their trousers, but Valosh curled his tongue around it reverently, sucking as one big finger slid deep into Tsedi’s rear. Still slick and soft from Threx’s “lovemaking”, it pushed in with little resistance, and Tsedi bit back a whine, his hands reaching down to clutch the rounded stubs of his partner’s ears.

The whine built in his throat again and again as Valosh found his prostrate with the ease of long practice. _Accept the gifts freely. It’s ok, let go_ , Maetror’s voice echoed in his head and with a cry, he released.

Release was far more than a judder of come in Valosh’s cavernous mouth. Tsedi arched, stiff as a wave of force rolled out from his body, hard enough to knock Valosh off him and slam him into the dampener wall. The energy sparked and shivered along the dampeners before sputtering out, Tsedi sagging, spent, back onto the cot.

Valosh wiped his face and picked himself up. “You take too many risks. You should have killed him before you got so knotted up,” he chided, tossing Tsedi a robe. When it hit the Chevalier in the face, and he just lay there, Valosh snorted and stalked off to the cockpit.

“He was a bad man and deserved to die in bad way. I save the gentle deaths for people I like, after all!” Tsedi yelled after him. “I LIKE YOU!”

“GET DRESSED AND EAT A SNACK YOU IDIOT,” Valosh shouted back and Tsedi could only grin.


	3. Chapter 3

Warm air rolled through the bath’s great open windows, and Tsedi sank a little deeper into the salted, scented waters of the tub. An imperiati would fill their tub with soft mud for a wallow, and an exilioshi with warm, dry sand to burrow deep within. He’d tried both and found them acceptable, but nothing beat a nice bath for aching muscles. 

Somewhere below, he heard the shouts of the Garden’s cadets engaged in some martial drill and he smiled, eyes closed against the gentle caress of the breeze.

Closer, Valosh was butchering the lyrics to some pop song he’d heard during their last mission on Mesxilos. Tsedi stretched his legs, wiggling his toes. 

Valosh abruptly stopped singing and his eyes snapped open. The bath was a haven filled with flowers and oils and soft towels, and there were still a hundred things he could kill an opponent with within reach, but the most efficient was hidden under the tiled rim. Before he could slip out of the tub, the curtain to the bath parted and the Maetror strode in, Valosh scrambling behind her. His hide was ashy with panic.

“Stay in the tub, son,” she said, mandibles chittering. She’d been newly retired from active service when he’d first arrived, a lifetime ago, and three decades of the mostly peaceful life in the Garden hadn’t softened her in the least. “Too slow, by the way.” One of her four arms was a prosthetic of the highest quality, gleaming in the herioxian sunlight.

From the tub he flicked a knife at one of her scarred eyes, and she caught it with a snort. Her thick fur gleamed ruby-brown, the breeze ruffling it and her loose white robes. “I read your report on Threx. Good job. He was a bastard and a shame to the web of Mesxilos and the Imperium.” She studied her claws. “I’d love to give you a few days more of downtime, but I’m afraid I’ve got another job for you.”

With a grunt, Tsedi pulled himself out of the tub. He could feel her gaze appraising the fading bruises on his ankles and waist as he reached for a towel. Beyond the window, the nearly endless seas of Heriox stretched out beyond the Garden’s walls. In the distance, he saw the spires of another floating city, glittering in the sun. Cadets shouted their agression in a courtyard below. “I am ever yours, my Maetror,” he glanced over his shoulder, wet hair sliding across his skin. “What do you need?”

She beckoned him over, and he complied, her claws tracing the barely visible scars that peppered his flesh. Her mechanical hand ran one finger along the softened line of his cock and she chuckled at the barest twitch beneath her touch. “Do you recall Nerrim?”

He nodded, retrieving the memory of a fellow cadet, a stocky little exilioshi with a bristly ginger-pink coat. “I haven’t seen him in years,” he answered as he allowed her to inspect him further.

“He was sent to Thrang, embedded with a group of diplomatic courtesans. He’s been on long term deep cover,” she murmured, tsking at the scratches on his thighs as she made him turn around.

Tsedi suppressed most of the twitch in his jaw and turned it into a smirk, dropping his head to allow his hair to veil the bulk of his expression. “What did he do to piss you off enough to send him to the Hexen?” 

If any world deserved the title of Hellhole, it was Thrang. Third from the dim, red sun, Thrang sulfur-yellow world of nearly unbreathable atmosphere, hot enough wreck an imperiati hardsuit in hours and home to the armoured Hexen. Even the floating sky-cities the Imperium had installed in the upper atmosphere were considered the worst posting any diplomat or agent could possibly receive. Nominally clients of the Imperium, the Hexen on Thrang had been contentious for centuries, and those few that left their insular world were treated with a mix of respect and outright fear. 

_Dead fucking light_ , Tsedi through. _Thrang_.

 _Home_.

“Nerrim’s armiger is embedded with the consulate guard. He’s missed his last three check-ins. It should have been reported when he’d missed the first. Let alone three,” the Maetror hissed, ignoring the question. She slapped Tsedi’s rear as she stood. “The Grand Imperius himself has requested you to investigate.”

“Nerrim's most likely dead you know,” Tsedi turned to her. “Is this investigation or retaliation?”

“Both.” She chucked her claws under his chin, lifting his face. With one of her free hands, she caressed his cheek with his own knife before handing it to him. “Discover if he is dead or compromised. For his sake, Let’s hope it's the former, my boy. I would hate for you to have to kill one of our own.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsedi and Valosh are on a boat.

A jumpshuttle could make the trip to Thrang from Heriox in four hours at nominal speed, riding a high-band needlewave. Sure, it was uncomfortable, electromagnetic shrieks shivering the hull and bones alike, but it was fast.

A government liner was eight. But for Tsedi’s cover to work, he had to be showing up for assignment along with all the other governmental agents and their families, not just appearing out of the blue without paperwork.

His uniform left no question as to his status, sitting in the liner’s reserved lounge. A high-collared pale gold top, the body cropped short enough to display the length of Tsedi’s bare flesh, and the sleeves ending in gloves. On one shoulder, a holographic badge of the Imperial Counseling Service gleamed. Low-cut trousers, of the same silken, skin-tight material as the shirt, only in purple-black. The clothing was flexible enough that he could, and had, killed a target in them, but Tsedi had never grown to love the impractical footwear of a human courtesan - teetering heels that forced every step into a balancing act. Each courtesan species garments were different, but all carried the same message. He understood the power of the illusion, but he still sank into his diaphanous violet-gold overcoat with a grumble, watching the thick, amber wine shiver in its glass.

Across the room, a young imperiati with a gleaming blue-grey hide cast eyes on him for the fifth time. He was too decoratively dressed to be on the job, and Tsedi took a sip, trying to figure out which diplomat’s third spouse he might have been.

“Hey, Valosh, do you wanna trade?” He subvocalized, catching the movement out of the corner of his vision as the imperiati got up from his seat. He closed his eyes with a sigh.

[No way,] Valosh’s reply vibrated against Tsedi’s jaw. [I don’t care how much free liquor they serve you in reserve class.] There was a pause, then [Are you ok?]

The seat next to him creaked under heavy weight, and a thick finger ran down his bared belly, tracing along the waistband of his trousers. Tsedi cracked open one eye and took in his new seatmate’s polished tusks, and the pink pearl studs in his stubby ears. “You move that hand any lower, you’ll need to fill out the appropriate paperwork I'm afraid,” he said.

[Oh, dead light. That again.] Valosh grunted against his jawbone. [If you need me, just say ‘mudfish’]

“Do you know who my wife is?” The imperiati didn’t move his hand, one huge thumb tracing the head of Tsedi’s cock through his pants. He leaned in close, the scent of liquor thick in his breath. “I am the underhusband of the incoming vice consul. _You_ belong to _us_ , stickbug.”

“Oh, _well_ , that’s different,” Tsedi purred and set his drink down. He got up in a slither of silk and straddled the imperiati, running his gloved hands over the thick folds of heavy flesh beneath the man’s frothy robes. The garments didn’t hide much, and the big man’s blunt, ridged cock was hard against Tsedi’s own as he ground against him with a sly little smile.

The vice consul’s underhusband kneaded Tsedi’s rear with one big hand as he keyed the seat’s privacy curtain. “That’s better,” he grunted, against Tsedi’s lips “Now, how about you how me what that soft little mouth of yours can do, stickbug?” 

Tsedi bared his teeth. “I _belong_ to the Grand Imperius,” he whispered against the underhusband’s cheek “And you should be incredibly grateful for what comes next.” In one swift motion, he thrust his fingers into the imperiati’s ears, and twisted, striking a nerve cluster he’d learned to hit when he was a child. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he twitched, spittle gurgling out of the corner of his mouth as he fell off the seat.

Tsedi keyed off the privacy screen and straightened himself up. “Vice Consul?” He turned to a scowling imperiati woman in a structured purple suit. “Your underhusband can’t hold his liquor, I’m afraid.”

Against his jaw, he felt Valosh cackle.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh

Port Archstone was the largest suborbital city on Thrang, home to over seventeen million souls. While the surface of the planet was inhospitable to all but the Hexen, the suborbitals provided a link between Thrang and the rest of the Imperium. 

_Dead fucking light._

Tsedi leaned against a column, watching the oily yellow clouds rise beneath them. Far in the distance, one of the Needles pierced the canopy, stabbing out into space. No one, not even the greatest scholars in the Imperium, knew what species had originally made them - but they had been a part of the system from the most ancient of days.

The power they generated powered starships and comms from one end of the system to the other, all of it maintained by the io. 

The liner dove through the cloudline, and Tsedi squinted out of the thick windows feeling as if it would fall forever through the clouds, never reaching Thrang's unforgiving surface. Then, through the choking fog, the brilliant lights of Archstone shone and the ship leveled out, local impulse thrusters taking over for the needlewave. “Get settled, see if you can find Nerrim’s armiger and we’ll check in at 8, standard imperial,” he subvocalized, feeling Valosh’s grunt of assent. 

There were no customs checks for an imperial staff liner, and Tsedi hoisted his single bag, teetering on the ungainly heels. 

[Hey, _giwif_ , you’ll never guess who I just saw in the crowd, headed your way,] Valosh sing-songed and Tsedi felt a ripple of adrenaline. 

“Don’t fuck with me, Valosh.” Tsedi scanned the crowd with rising concern. "Who..."

“I’m sorry, sir, you’re going to need to come with me,” the voice was like broken glass melting, and Tsedi stopped too quickly, almost toppling over on the ridiculous platforms. Armored claws caught him by the waist and immediately righted him, and Tsedi found himself looking up into four luminous golden eyes. 

“Hzzreks?” Tsedi squeaked up at the enormous Hexen, his racing brain already formulating a plan to kick Valosh's ass back to Heriox. Two sets of iridescent black horns curled over the sweeping bark-like plates that covered the hexen’s face. He wore armor designed to echo the baroque plates that covered the rest of his body, and if Tsedi’s memory served, it was a fairly faithful reproduction. "Hzzra? What...?"

“Security Chief Hzzreks to you, Courtier,” he smiled, showing three rows of razor edged teeth. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw your name on the manifest.” His claws tightened on Tsedi’s waist. “Been a while, Tsedi.”

[Awwwkwaaard] Valosh vocalized against his jawbone and Tsedi bit off a scowl. [Hey. Tell the future father of my godchildren hello.]

“A little over ten standard years,” Tsedi sternly ignored his Armiger and reached up to run a finger along one of the enormous, curling horns. “You had just started growing in your second set.”

“You don't call, you don't write. I was afraid you’d died somewhere,” the yellow light in Hzzreks’ eyes softened to pink and Tsedi felt his composure melt. “And of all the ports in all the system, suddenly you show up in mine.”

“You know I don’t have any control over my postings,” Tsedi said weakly. “It’s good to see you, Hzzra. Congratulations... on the promotion.” He splayed a gloved hand on the Hexen’s broad chest, feeling the thump of his two hearts. “Even if it’s back on Thrang?” He added with a lick of his lips.

Before Hzzreks could answer, shouts broke out down the gallery, and he pulled Tsedi closer. Tsedi pushed the immediate warm rush in his guts aside and struggled to see what was happening. Over the chief’s huge arms, he could see a group of Hexen, their horns painted lurid yellow, knocking over a kiosk. Immediately a swarm of security descended on them, their comms crackling in the unit on Hzzreks’ shoulder. “Separatist protests still?” Tsedi ventured.

“They thought having a Hexen chief might ease tensions,” the chief’s broken glass laugh vibrated in his chest. “Not working quite as expected.” Within moments, the commotion was over, a few metal-shelled io gliding through the multi-species crowd of imperial staffers, impassively watching the chaos. Hzzreks looked as if he wanted to say something else, the rose light in his eyes dipping into a yellow-green of worry. 

Tsedi filed it away, then turned in Hzzreks’ embrace, unable to stop tracing the patterns on the Hexen's uniform. The words tumbled out of him before he could make himself stop. “So, I just got here, and I don’t think they’ve stocked my pantry yet, but… do you want to bring me home for dinner?”

Hzzreks’ eyes shifted to pink-orange and he showed all of his teeth. “ _Absolutely_.”

[Well, alrighty. Let’s make it ten pm, then] Valosh added blandly in Tsedi’s ear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsedi is unlikely to get back any security deposits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this one has oviposition of a sort if that's not your thing.

There was a trail of clothing that started at the door to Tsedi’s temporary apartment and ended at the kitchen table.

Hzzreks pressed him against the tastefully decorated wall, long tongue uncurling into Tsedi’s mouth, straight to the back of his throat. Some of his earliest training had been developing a tolerance to the nectar-like coating on a Hexen tongue, but it didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy the taste, pursing his lips to encourage Hzzreks to push it in further and deeper. 

Against his bare belly, he felt Hzzreks’ shaft extend from it’s pouch, the coarse, soft plates covering it scraping his overheated flesh. Reluctantly, he pulled away from the Hexen’s plated lips to look down at the enormous, green-black, three-lobed head pressing up towards him. One lobe had a delicate point, while the other two were curved, one ridged and fluted, the other blunt and round. With a little sound, he ran his fingertips over it, feeling Hzzreks’ body shiver against him. “Still looks pretty good,” Tsedi chuckled, feeling the sticky lubricant oozing from the fluted tip. “Did he miss me?”

Hzzreks’ razor teeth grazed along Tsedi’s throat and he growled, grabbing his rear and hoisting him up. “Want me to show you?” 

“By all means,” Tsedi bared his teeth as the Hexen mashed their faces together again.

The spaded head of Hzzreks’ cock pressed into Tsedi’s ass, the gushing lube from the other head easing the huge shaft in. With a whimper, Tsedi grabbed one his horns as the hexen found his rhythm, slamming Tsedi’s back into the wall. 

He urged Hzzreks’ tongue back into his mouth, soft human lips pressed tight to rough. Inside, he felt a squirm, the sheath of Hzzreks’ cock sliding back to release the three separate shafts. The spaded tip extended, pushing ever deeper. 

The difference in hexen physiology meant that the “vine” would extend through mate’s cloaca, past the egg pouch and deep into their intestines, holding them in place for breeding. In Tsedi’s case, it curled and twitched far too deep inside him as the other two head thrust into into him again and again.

He whimpered, half-gagging on the hexen tongue deep in his throat, meeting Hzzreks’ thrusts with his own downward ones, clinging to his horns for leverage. He was dimly aware as a painting clattered to the floor and Hzzreks lurched them both to the nearest table, retracting his tongue so he could bite at Tsedi’s heated throat.

Tsedi's training demanded he withhold his pleasure, bank and save the passion Hzzreks was pouring into him to kill him if necessary. He reminded himself that the Security Chief was safe. Hzzra was no enemy. _Give of yourself. Take the gifts that were offered_. 

He arched up towards the Hexen, sobbing with need as he came hard across Hzzreks’ armored belly. The other man drove harder, the growl rising louder and louder in his chest. Tsedi’s eyes flew open as he felt the third, ridged shaft expanding, opening him wider and wider with each thunderous thrust. “Wait, wait, Hzza…” he croaked out, fingers curling against his lover’s arms. “Don’t you dare don’t you…”

With a final roar, a massive gout of fluid emptied into Tsedi’s guts along with something huge and round. Another sputtering spurt of come shivered from Tsedi’s own cock and he half-heartedly punched the huge hexen. “You _fucker_. You egged me,” he wheezed, squirming on Hzzreks’ softening shafts.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hzzreks rasped against his throat with a laugh. “I got overexcited.” He ran sharp kisses against Tsedi’s flesh. “It’ll dissolve in a couple days.”

“Hzza, I have to work,” Tsedi whined and pulled on his horns. “Get it out.”

“Point:” Hzzreks thrust lazily into him, setting the egg to rolling inside of Tsedi’s rear. “You look ridiculously adorable with a little belly like that and you said your hair never looked better the last time we did this.”

“Counterpoint: I am here to work, not carry your egg around in me as much as I would love to,” Tsedi smacked him again. “Also, fuck you, you have chitin. What do you know about hair. Get it out.”

“Fine, fine.” The hexen’s eyes were a luminous rosey-blue. The vine squirmed and coiled. As he used it to retrieve the egg, Tsedi hissed in pleasure as it came loose with a gush of fluid. “Better?”

“Better,” Tsedi kissed him again as Hzzreks helped him to his feet. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” The graceful plates on his face didn’t show much emotion beyond his shifting, luminous eyes, but his broken glass voice was gentle. “Great dinner. How about you clean yourself up and I…” they both looked around the ruin of the kitchen. “Try and clean this up?”

“Then we can talk about dessert?” Tsedi laughed.

“Absolutely.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Valosh cockblocks Tsedi

The apartment’s shower was a slim, glass-walled chamber, a far cry from the luxurious baths in the Garden. And instead of fragrant, mineral-rich water, a cloying foam extruded from a nozzle.

Dead light, Tsedi hated Thrang.

Steam filled the chamber and the foam expanded with the scent of artificial flowers. Tsedi pressed his hands on the glass wall and sighed. “Valosh, any sign of Nerrim’s Armiger?” He took the residual glow from his coupling with Hzzra and sped up his body's healing process, just enough that he'd be able to walk straight for the rest of the evening.

[Oh good, it’s safe to talk again? How’s your little reunion going? _Clearly_ he’s forgiven you for ditching him on Mesxilios ten years ago.]

“Never you mind about him. Nerrim's Armiger?”

[You’re no fun. Yeah. I found Troc. We uh… bumped into each other in the mess hall. She has no idea who I am, far as I can tell, but I put a tracker on her. There’s… not a lot of regimental procedure here. Dead light, I friggin’ hate Thrang.]

Tsedi smiled a bit, weary in his reflection. “That’s good work. Maybe I should be _your_ Armiger.”

[Oh hell no. Weird sex magic and fancy clothes? I think not. You need an exfil, by the way, or do you want to spend some more time with the love of your life?]

“I don’t love him,” Tsedi whispered, breath steaming against the glass.

“Should I be flattered that you’re talking yourself out of being in love me?” Hzzreks’ broken glass voice shook Tsedi out of the conversation, and he looked up, watching the dim pink glow of the hexen’s eyes. “You look a lot grimmer than I’d kind of hoped after we destroyed your new kitchen.”

Tsedi splayed his fingers against the glass. “I… I didn’t get a lot of prep time before this posting. But it seemed pretty abrupt. Do you know what happened to the Courtesan I’m replacing?”

“I have some theories. We’ve had an uptick in entertainers and courtesans disappearing. But this _is_ Thrang, and most employers have about a 300% attrition rate. I’m working on getting leads, but…” Hzzreks stepped into the chamber, steam beading on his horns. Tsedi straightened and Hzzreks curled his rough-plated arms around soft human shoulders. “The universe didn’t put you back in my life for me to let anything happen to you.” He leaned his chin on the top of Tsedi’s head. “I will never, ever let anything happen to you. Tsed, I know you don’t feel comfortable saying you love _anything_ , let alone me, but I….”

“You shouldn’t,” Tsedi murmured, feeling the massive tripartite shaft settling against his rear. It was erect again, but not as hard, not as needy. “Why haven’t you settled down with some other hexen who’ll tolerate you long enough to fertilize your eggs and carry them so you can produce a brood of adorable babies with too many teeth?”

A hum vibrated through Hzzreks and he kissed the top of Tsedi’s head, claws ghosting down his sides as if he were made of the most fragile silk. “What can I say? I have horrible taste in partners.”

“It’s been a decade!” Tsedi shivered, even in the heat of the shower, the faintly acrid scent of Hzzreks’ body in counterpoint to the choking floral. Hzzreks was grinding against him, slow enough to be torture. Slick with his spike’s own lubricant, and Tsedi braced his hands against the glass again, bending forward in invitation.

“Dead light, Tsedi, I'm not an io! Of course I've had a few relationships. They’ve just never worked. I don’t _want_ someone I can tolerate long enough to brood with. None of them are you. I never stopped…” Hzzreks bent to nip at his shoulder, pressing back into Tsedi’s rear with the same agonizing slowness. “I never stopped.”

Conversation turned to soft grunts and a gasp of breath as Hzzreks drew out, then back in. His ovipos was swollen, but egg-free, just hard enough to be pleasurable as he moved. Tsedi lifted on his toes, fingers twitching on the glass. He panted, forcing himself to watch through heavy eyes the deepening rose of Hzzreks’ eyes. He pulled the pleasure down into his core, filling the hollow with that rose-pink light. 

[Ding Dong]

Tsedi’s eyes snapped open. “Wait, no…” he croaked out and Hzzreks stopped, hilt deep in him.

“Tsedi?”

“I. I just remembered, my consulate detail was supposed to come by,” Tsedi hissed out, squirming back against Hzzreks’ hips. “That son of a mudfish can wait.”

[Words hurt.]

The door chime rang, then rang again. And again. Three out of four eyes narrowing in irritation, Hzzreks sighed and drew out fully, the movement sending Tsedi sagging against the wall. “I’ll send him on his way and be right back. Being the Chief of Port Security gives me some certain powers.”

The towel he wrapped around his waist was human-scale, barely covering an erect hexen shaft in the most comical way possible, and with a frustrated wheeze, Tsedi sank to the floor of the shower, banging the back of his head against the glass wall.

“Dead light, Valosh,” he whispered as he heard the hexen open the apartment door. 

“Valosh, I should have known. Where there's Tsedi Mys, there's you."

“Good to see you again too, Hzzreks. I'd ask how it’s hanging but…”

In the shower, Tsedi covered his face to stifle a touch of hysterical laughter.

“Tsedi, I have to talk to Valosh a moment!” Hzzreks yelled from the door, but then his voice dropped, and Tsedi heard him through the open comm channel in Valosh’s implant. “If anything happens to him on your watch, I will kill whoever hurts him, and then I will make a decorative hat out of your skull and boots out of your rubbery hide, got it, imperiati?”

“I missed you too, Hzzra.” Valosh answered good-naturedly, clearly aware his mic was still open. Tsedi tried to imagine what non-verbal message he was sending.

After a few moments, Hzzreks poked his head back in the shower, immediately followed by Valosh. The imperiati waved a big armored hand, his snout pulled back in a grin. Tsedi pushed himself to standing, and shot his armiger a dirty look, before turning back to Hzzreks. “So.”

“So. I will let you get to whatever work you need to get up to with..." Hzzreks paused and shot Valosh a Significant Look. "But will you promise me you won’t just leave again?” Hzzreks picked up his pants, fidgeting them in his razor-edged claws.

“I will do you one better. Schedule permitting, do you want to _really_ do dinner tomorrow. Or lunch? Or…” Tsedi felt an unfamiliar heat on his cheeks, painfully aware of Valosh expectantly rocking on his heels.

“Breakfast too, maybe. I still remember how to cook some truly awful human dishes,” Hzzreks bent to kiss him again, and Tsedi ignored Valosh’s stupid grin. 

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Tsedi took his towel, his own, decidedly not-stupid smile fixed on his lips.

When the chief had gone, Tsedi buried his face in the towel for a moment, then turned to his partner. “OK, time to get to work then.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Tsedi and Valosh get to work

The door hadn’t even fully closed when Valosh tossed him a flat, gleaming, package.

The same ancient space-folding technology that allowed a starship to jump thirty million miles in a few hours and gave a person the ability to briefly ride the needlecast from one beacon to another, also gave them the ability to compress huge amounts of matter into nearly 2-dimensional spaces.

Still, for a courtesan, even a high-ranking one, carrying a military-grade fold would be suspect. However, an imperiati soldier like Valosh, with the proper paperwork, could carry as many as he could hold. The fold was linked to Tsedi’s rider and it unfurled into a case that he dropped on the hastily rearranged table.

 _May the living light love Hzzra_ , Tsedi thought with a momentary wash of fondness, he always meant well, but the boy was a slob.

“So, just promise me when you do finally decide to betray your duty to the Garden and the Imperium so you can run off and live an anonymous, peaceful life on a farm on Mesxilios with Hzzreks and forty adopted urchins and always under the fear of discovery, you let me know? I’m gonna live in your barn and teach your kids proper weapons handling and how best to drive their parents crazy.” Valosh called with his head poked into the barren pantry. Then he leaned his snout on the edge of the door and watched Tsedi pull a softsuit out of the fold. “I’m gonna be the best uncle ever.”

Tsedi stopped and glared at him, before going back to suiting up. The softsuit compressed against his skin and there was a subsonic shiver as the suit synched to his biometrics. “I’m not running off with Hzzreks and you’re not living in my shed. What’ve you got on Nerrim’s armiger?” He muttered, flexing his fingers as the armour plating adjusted.

“ _Barn_. Different.” Valosh cackled, plopping himself down in a kitchen chair. “Troc Shesh, officer in Port Archstone’s fifth garrison. Pleasant enough, certainly doesn’t seem like she’s stressing out that she’s missing her chevalier in action. I didn’t make contact as a fellow armiger, but I put out some feelers to get an idea of her behavior. I think she thinks I’m angling to become one of her husbands.”

“And you say I work fast,” Tsedi dropped in the chair beside him, adjusting his boots. “Is she beautiful?”

Valosh’s pearly grey snout flushed. “She’s got a hide like a herioxian sunset and tusks like gold. Fuck yes she’s beautiful.” He sank into his armor, then kicked Tsedi’s chair. “And she also apparently likes to make regular trips to the pleasure quarter nearest her garrison. Apparently has a thing for exilioshi whores.”

“Nerrim was supposed to be here as a courtesan first class, embedded with an entertainment division, not moonlighting in a brothel. Unless he and Troc couldn’t meet normally.” Tsedi put his feet up on Valosh’s leg. “Hzzra said there’d been an uptick in entertainers disappearing lately. That wasn’t in our intel either.”

Valosh tapped at the rider on his gauntlet. “This is _Thrang_. You know the statistics for people fucking out of their jobs. It’s better to be homeless on Mesxilios than it is to be wealthy on Thrang, after all, even for the damn hexen.” He looked up. “How long has it been since you’ve been back here?”

Tsedi looked past him, out into Archstone’s artificial night. Beyond the constantly shifting needlewave barrier, lightning danced in the dark yellow clouds churning around the orbital. “Not long enough. Is Troc on the move yet? It’s getting about time for the brothels to be opening up.”

“Bingo. Got her. You ready, or do you need a top-off?” Valosh asked, flicking his thick fingers across a data pad. “I did interrupt your playtime after all.”

Tsedi slid out of his chair and tapped a pattern on his rider. “Nah, your timing meant I didn’t blow the second wave, as much as I would have liked.” He stretched, listening to his back pop. “You should go out the way you came in, let Hzzra’s people see you leaving. I’ve got a lock on a needlecast I can ride off the roof to intercept.”

“I can’t believe you only fucked _Hzzreks of all people t_ wice. You’re getting old, man.” Valosh closed his tablet. “But what makes you think he’s got you under surveillance?

“Please, of _course_ he does. He’s trying to protect me from whatever he thinks is happening,” Tsedi sighed, pulling on his helmet. “So make sure they see you, or you can’t live in my shed.”

“It’s a barn, there’s a difference you urban excuse for a mudfish!”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsedi gets his ass kicked

Like every other imperiati-built city, Archstone was laid out in a precise grid, each sector clearly defined. Uniformity meant consistency for the various citizen species of the imperium. Down below, on the unbearably hot surface of Thrang, native hexen cities rose in towering baroque hives from the sulfurous plains. On Mesxilios, exiloshi communes hung on steelsilk cables from thousand-foot trees. But no matter where you went, the neatly ordered plans of the imperati’s cities were there.

Tsedi had leapt from the roof of his new apartment block and had unfolded halfway across the city, landing on another near a municipal needlecast beacon. No living thing could exist long in the unnatural physics of needlespace, and riders were banned for everyone but the military. He’d been too out of it when Valosh had ridden them both out of his last mission to feel the queasy lurch, but he’d definitely felt it as he rolled to his feet. No matter how much training he’d had, forced to stay in needlespace until he’d almost died a hundred times, the desire to puke was an autonomic reaction in a human and he allowed himself the few moments to let it sort itself out.

The tracker on Troc showed her nearby, and Tsedi took a bit of the power he’d charged from Hzzreks to slow his drop from the roof to a gentle drift, landing silently in the alleyway behind her. The multicolored lights of the pleasure quarter showed a hundred different delights. Not everyone came for sex. There were bars and shows deemed to risqué for public morals otherwise. Some came on dates for the restaurants or dancing. But every single person who worked within the quarters walls, lived within them as well, forbidden to leave. Tsedi shuddered at the thought.

“Troc Shesh, we need to talk,” Tsedi stepped out of the shadows behind her, and she froze. She was bigger than Valosh, her tusks gleaming golden in the gloom. Tsedi had prepared for her to run, or to try and bullshit him. But he _wasn’t_ prepared when she wheeled around and charged at him instead. “FUCK!”

He barely danced clear of the first charge. The imperiati were huge but they were fast, and being hit by one was like being run over by a cargo carrier. She skidded, turned faster than anything her size had a right doing and swung at him. Too fast for him to get out of the way, Tsedi burned more of the power from his interlude with Hzzreks to shield, redirecting the inertia of her blow back at her. He cursed himself for wasting it before, pushing the rest of the power through his own body to follow through with a kick that should have taken her head off.

Instead, she grabbed his ankle and swung him into a wall. The softsuit diffused some of the impact but not enough, stabbing pain lancing through his side as at least one rib cracked. His ears rang as his helmeted head bounced off the synthcrete. In the next moment, she had him by the throat, grinding his back against the wall. “You can tell your masters to go to hell,” she snarled, crushing down.

“Mudfish.” Tsedi croaked out, and he watched her dark eyes narrow.

“What did y…” the rest of Troc Shesh’s sentence was cut off as Valosh came out of nowhere and hit her like a freight train, sending the other armiger bouncing down the alleyway.

Valosh hauled him to his feet and Tsedi turned the pain inwards. Pain was a worse charge than sex, but it would be enough to shield if she took another go at him. “Troc Shesh, know me as a knight of the first flower, guardian of Heriox.”

The rage-light went out of Troc’s eyes and she slumped against the wall. “Dead light, sorry chevalier. I thought you were someone else.” She looked up at Valosh. “And you. I should have known a smug devil like you was trouble.”

Tsedi’s face was still masked, but he was sure Valosh could *hear* the lift of his eyebrow. “Exactly how hard did the two of you… bump into each other?”

Valosh only gave him a shitty, broad-tusked grin.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsedi has a soft spot

Tsedi had sent Valosh back to the barracks with Troc afterwards.

> _Nerrim’s been investigating the hexen separatists movement._
> 
> _Bastard only checks in every few weeks anyways._
> 
> _I’m only his armiger, you think he tells me anything? I just know he was spending days in the lower pleasure quarter._

He hadn’t needed to tell Valosh he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, and back in the blandly decorated apartment the Imperium had secured for him, he spread out what he knew. 

Troc had said Nerrim had been investigating the recent push from the any number of native hexen independence movements, demanding Thrang to be recognized as a sovereign nation and not a client of the Imperium. That tracked with his mission data from the Garden, and the scene that had greeted him at the port on his arrival certainly reinforced that.

Tsedi poured himself a drink and applied another pain patch where Troc had cracked his ribs. Then, he unfolded his toolkit.

He _could_ have connected those dots and left it at that. But. _BUT_. Hzzreks had mentioned other disappearances. Ones that hadn’t been in any official action reports from Thrang’s provincial government. An uptick coinciding with Nerrim’s investigation. Tsedi didn’t trust coincidence. He hadn’t survived as long as he had without being cautious. Hzzra was too conscientious to not file official reports, that was one thing Tsedi DID trust. 

_Which means The Governor-Consul was keeping that information out of his updates to the Imperium,_ he thought as he set down a crystalline stimulator. It was heavy and cool, fluted in a myriad of exotic patterns, but it began to warm as he coated it in a pheromone gel. He couldn’t trust that walking into the Consulate in the morning wouldn’t require some protection, and he didn’t trust Troc enough to call Valosh back.

On the uncomfortable, human-standard bed, he sank down onto the stimulator, tapping out an expansion pattern on his rider. The meditation was a simple one, loop a single pleasurable sensation into itself and feed that power into his core. He ground down on the shaft as it surged u _p and out and in_ all at once. But he’d done this too many times, his brain knew all the tricks to defer and delay, and he swiped open a decade-old video file on his rider as the stimulator surged inside of him.

Hzzreks, nude, metallic chitinous plates and the coarse flesh beneath it lit by a dull red light. 

“Ok I promise this is going to be a short deployment, I will be home in a few days,” he grinned, showing all three rows of teeth. “And I miss you already.” His massive claws curled against his genital slit, the pre-pouch extending from it. Maetror had given Tsedi grief for years that he had a very specific hexen festish, and as he watched the soft, deep-blue flesh push outwards, he could taste it in the back of his throat. He could still smell Hzzreks’ scent from their earlier escapades that evening, and seeing him ten years younger, his second set of horns still sharp-gleaming stubs, gave him more of a rush than even the stimulator finding the rhythm on his prostate.

He forced himself not to stroke his own shaft in time with Hzzreks’ huge hand on his own tripartite one, listening more to the ground-glass growl than the actual words. 

(I love you, Tsedi. I have something so important I need to ask you when I get back, so be ready, ok?)

Tsedi bit down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood as he turned the orgasm into banked power. His cracked ribs screeched as his body heaved with the effort, watching on the screen as Hzzreks’ gleaming eyes suddenly shifted to panicked green as someone off camera banged on the supply closet door. 

Panting, half-sobbing a laugh as he sagged on the uncomfortable bed, Tsedi watched as the giant hexen struggled to put his uniform back on. He’d never heard what Hzzra was going to ask him, because he’d taken off as soon as he was sure Hzzreks was on that ship. Wincing, he pulled the stimulator free and curled against the little screen.

The power singing in his nerves was a lullabye as he closed his eyes and tried to get some rest.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsedi enters the belly of the beast. Or the Governor's offices. Same difference.

Morning in Port Archstone was virtually indistinguishable from any other time of the day. Despite Thrang’s proximity to the sun, the dense, sulfurous atmosphere shuttered the light. Through the port’s atmospheric shields, the sky shaded from a dark orange to a dully luminescent amber.

Tsedi plucked at the high collar of his tight dress top as the autocar sped towards the Governor’s tower. Dead light, every time he returned, _grudgingly_ , to Thrang, he hated it slightly more. He had not chosen a life with the Garden, as a courtsean or Knight of the First Flower. He certainly hadn’t asked to have been sold to the Maetror, that was for certain. 

But it had gotten him the fuck off Thrang. He pulled a narrow compact out of his overcoat and took a final look at his makeup. An exililos would powder their dense coat with holographic, scented pollen. He’d known a very few hexen courtesans in his career who would embed emotion-reactive gems in their plates. If there had ever been an imperiati courtesan….

Tsedi cut the thought off with a snort. Lack of sleep was making him whimsical. Fortunately, concealer hid the physical evidence of both his dark circles and the bruise on his side where Troc had cracked his ribs. He blotted the iridescent gloss on his lips and snapped the compact shut, running his thumb along the edge of the lacquered case. In the windscreen, the Governor’s tower loomed.

On the pedestrian platforms outside, Imperium peacekeepers stood watch as yellow-stained separatist protestors. A few of them saw him, and the purple and gold of his uniform. He braced for insults and the odd bit of debris. A flick in his peripheral vision and he did the trajectory math. He altered his step pattern enough to dodge - catching or deflecting it would have been easier, but he knew from experience that Thrang left a stain, and he hadn't brought a spare uniform. The chunk of gritty yellow matter whizzed past and splatted on the platform. He didn’t look, but immediately heard the shouts of the peacekeepers.

Tsedi’s badge got him through the gate without incident, teetering shoes ticking lightly against the polished floor. The native Thrangite hard stone was inlaid with Herioxian seabed stone, and Tsedi ran the extravagant cost of it in his head, digging one heel harder than he specifically needed to as he headed to the lift. 

Governor-Consul Silash had been in charge long before Tsedi had been born in the slums miles beneath those million-cred tiles, and as the doors slid open to his chambers, it was clear Silash had no intention of ever leaving. The secretary, a rose-furred exiloshi, bowed as she opened the huge white-glass doors.

The Governor sat behind a massive white-stone desk, his weathered greenish hide softened by the golden frills of his coat. His tusks had been long ago capped in fine porcelain, and he regarded Tsedi with small, glittering eyes. Sitting nearby on a white couch was another, familiar, imperiati. He watched her shift uncomfortably.

Sitting across from her, on another pristine couch, dressed in his crisp purple uniform, Hzzreks sat, ramrod straight, his four eyes shading bright pink. Tsedi buried his own discomfort deep inside.

The room was unrelentingly white. Walls of white glass and stone, abstract white-metal sculptures and white shaggy carpet. Pallid plants barely broke the glaring, spotless design. The only true colour in the room, besides the three figures sitting there, was the one massive window, looking out over Thrang’s churning yellow sky.

Tsedi noted the details of the room and filed them away. “Governor, thank you for receiving me,” he said, bowing.

“Do come in, Courtesan Mys.” The Governor-consul steepled his huge fingers. “I am so glad they sent a human this time. Were you aware of how much an exilioshi sheds?” He gestured. “Yrim is an excellent assistant, but I have to have the room cleaned every time she comes in here, and they still don’t get it all. Pink hair everywhere.”

“It’s a magnificent office, sir.” Tsedi slipped off his overcoat and folded it in his arms. “On behalf of the Imperial Counseling Service, let me officially apologise for your inconvenience in having to request a replacement.”

The Governor gestured absently and Tsedi set the coat down on a nearby chair. “My new vice-consul, Drin, arrived yesterday as well.” 

Tsedi watched her lips curl back and he smiled. “We’ve met. I do hope your underhusband is adjusting to Thrang, Vice Consul?” Her snout turned a dark red. “I know moving to a new assignment is the bane of all servants of the Imperium.” His smile widened as he watched her try to formulate a response. She’d clearly sent her spouse to bother Tsedi instead of boring her with his petulant antics on the flight, and certainly hadn’t been expecting to face him in an official capacity.

“He is recovering. Thank you for. For seeing to him on the trip.”

The Governor laughed. “They say Courtesans are the soft light in a harsh system. While security here at the tower is provided directly by Imperium Peacekeepers, the rest of Port Archstone is patrolled by the Thrang Security Forces. Chief Hzzreks and I had some business to attend to, but it’s good that you should meet the man who keeps us all safe.”

Under any other circumstances, Tsedi would have pretended to not know Hzzreks, as a way of seeing the Governor’s responses. But he also knew the big hexen was a terrible liar. So, he tucked his hair back and cut a little bow. “The Chief and I shared a posting on Mesxilos some years ago. It’s good fortune to see you again, sir. I can’t imagine being in safer hands.”

All four of Hzzreks’ eyes went slightly different shades of magenta. “I look forward to working with you again, Courtesan.”

The Governor’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood up in a flourish of gilded lace and ruffles. “Excellent, then this transition will be smoothed by your presence, Courtesan.” He clapped his hands. “As you said, you are a servant of the Imperium. You may be unfamiliar with Thrang, but here, I *am* the Imperium, so if it’s not too much trouble, get undressed for us? I want to see what they've sent me.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Governor reviews Tsedi's CV.

Tsedi caught his annoyance and bowed a bit to hide his face before any of it showed. “Of course, Governor, being naked is obviously part of my job.” He smiled, straightening smoothly. In his periphery, both Hzzreks and the Vice-Consul shifted uncomfortably. 

Clearly neither one of them had been prepared for this possibility and he wondered if Silash was making a point to him or to them. “But normally, at a new posting my superiors are interested first in my skillset and what I’m planning on bringing to better their communities.” He dropped his eyes and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.

“Courtesan, I don’t give six half-fucked exiloshi about your skillset _or_ your career goals,” Silash said pleasantly. His chair creaked as he sat back, folding his massive hands over his belly. “Do you know what your species’ greatest contribution to Imperium space has been since your ancient ancestor limped here in a crumbling interstellar garbage heap, no way back to their own worlds?”

“I’ve been told it’s the food,” Tsedi bantered back, hands clasped behind his back. He could see Hzzreks’ eyes downshift to chilly purple-blue and he silently willed the hexen to mind his own damn business.

“It’s true, the introduction of human foodways was a pleasant cultural introduction, but no. Your species real value is in your adaptability. Take the Chief here. You were posted with him on Mesxilos, you said. It takes a full-grown hexen an imperiati decade to adapt to life off this sulfurous ball of shit. That’s why so many start broods in the orbitals. So they’re born with it. The first hexen taken off world died of hypothermia on Heriox of all places. Put an exilioshi on a high grav outer world, one of the uninhabiteds, and they’ll fold like a cheap paper toy, gasping as their exoskeletons crumple. Put an imperiati in a desert with no water, and they’ll dehydrate and die in under six standard hours. But humans? You little insects haven’t found an environment you haven’t been able to at least partially survive in. You’re adaptable. And your small, fragile-looking bodies are so pleasant to the touch.” Silash licked the edge of one of tusks. “Your adaptability means there are more human courtesans in the system, from the lowest whores to valued entertainers like yourself, than any other species. That is what your species most important contribution to this system is, Mys. Now take off your clothes.”

“Of course, Governor.” 

Tsedi stripped for show, not at all with a passive-egressive slowness that made the Governor growl at him. Still, it felt good to be out of the shoes, toes digging into the thick white carpet. A fleck of colour caught his eye and he dropped to his knees in a single, graceful motion.

Wisps of the secretary’s pink fur to be sure, but also brilliant orange exilioshi hair was there too. 

_Nerrim’s fur._

Whether Silash was right or wrong about Humanity’s place in the Imperium didn’t interest Tsedi in the least. But one of the differences he knew very, very well about their species was this. 

The Imperiati were all, compared to humans, desperately nearsighted.

The chair creaked loudly as the Governor stood. “Drin, Hzzreks, I’m going to break in our new courtesan. You’re welcome to partake when I’m finished.”

“I have a mountain of mail to attend to, your Respectfulness,” Drin said, quickly. “Thank you for the the offer.” There was a tone of apology in her words, and her body leaned by inches towards Tsedi as she spoke them.

“I have matters as well, Governor,” Hzzreks stood. “However, I will be happy to escort the the Courtesan when you two have finished conducting business.”

“Then you both may go,” Silash bent down and lifted Tsedi’s chin with his huge hand. “I don’t like a mess in here, little bug, do you understand that?”

“Of course, Governor.” Tsedi let him half-drag him to standing, and his throat ached as Silash closed his hand over where Troc had tried to choke him out the night before. “If I may prepare?” He whispered, eyes demurely downcast. “My tenure will be fairly short if I try to take you without some small assistance. Humans may be adaptable, but we do have our stress limits.”

“You would die prettily.” Silash twirled a lock of Tsedi’s hair through his fingers. “Your colouration, is that natural?”

Tsedi waited for the Governor to release him enough to reach his compact, and slipped a small wafer out of one of the hidden compartments. He let Silash watch as he pushed it into his rear, let Silash see the immediate flush of red that spread across his chest and face. 

Tsedi hated the wafers as a matter of course. Hated anything that compromised his clarity, when clarity was often the only thing he had to pin his survival on. But Silash would try to break him, he could tell that immediately. And only a fool didn’t take an advantage where they could.

The slick, faintly fragrant with Heroxian lavender and moonflowers, trickled down his inner thigh, and he ran his cheek against Silash’s tusk, swaying as the intoxication took hold. “Governor,” he purred.

Silash sprawled on the couch, undoing his frilled robes. His hide beneath was oiled and the first blooming of his shaft was heavy and hard. 

Tsedi’s first lessons as a courtesan in the Garden had been learning Imperiati anatomy. Learning to coax the second bloom for some, or the opening of the palace for others. His mouth found the three veins that ran atop Silash’s shaft and slid his tongue down the spaces between them, fingers finding the sensitive nerve points beneath. Silash’s cock opened for him, the inner head pushing outwards in it’s petaled glory. The Governor hissed and flared his nostrils, both surprised and outraged that Tsedi got him so quickly. 

Before he could put his mouth on it, Silash grabbed his hair and yanked him upright, dragging Tsedi into his lap. The inner head pushed into him almost immediately, the petals spreading him too wide, too fast before the shaft contracted, pulling Tsedi down to the girth of the outer shaft with a force like a hard-G landing.

Tsedi almost blacked out before he could find the rhythm, Silash’s hand closing over his aching throat again.

He let his body do its job, motions and sounds escaping him both involuntary and automatic, while he focused on the glassy wall across from them. There was an abstract, peculiar pleasure he found in watching himself work. Flushed and bulging, his own cock ignored and bouncing with the force of Silash’s thrusts.

There was something behind it though. Past his reflection in the glass, and Tsedi hid his squint with a moan and a sway of his head. A movement, a blink of light. Recorders. Silash, the pervert, recorded everything in his office, Tsedi realised, curling one hand over the Governor’s to brace himself. To an imperati or exiloshi’s eyes, they were well hidden, but not to a human’s eyesight.

Or a hexen’s he added to that thought while Silash dragged him closer, his greasy torso sticking to Tsedi’s back. His hand tightened harder on Tsedi’s throat.

He was going to need to get back into the office to examine those devices. But the way to do that was sitting hidden, in his compact. On Silash’s desk.

He was trying to formulate a plan when he felt Silash expand further inside of him, close to completion, and Tsedi tabled it for the moment, relaxing his body to diffuse what he was certain was going to be savage.

“Do _not_ come, Courtesan,” Silash growled, tusks warm against Tsedi’s ear. “Touch yourself and I’ll break your hands off. I can’t abide that mess.” 

Tsedi struggled out a reply, the strangled words only partially for effect, before Silash came inside of him like a torrent. Hard enough that Tsedi swore he could almost taste it as Silash jerked inside of him, fingers twitching hard on his throat.

When he was done, Silash tipped forward and pushed Tsedi to the floor, pulling out before the petals of his inner head had finished retracting. “Crawl, and do not make a mess on my carpet.” He rumbled, pulling a wipe for himself out a nearby white ceramic container. “Bathroom is over there. Clean yourself up, then you are dismissed Courtesan. I look forward to hearing more about your… skill set.”

Still panting, Tsedi dug his fingers into the carpet. 

Silash paused, then tossed the compact at him. “And fix your makeup, you look a mess.”

Head bowed and body curled downwards, Tsedi’s minsicule grin went unseen as he curled his hand around the lacquered box.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsedi is crafty

Silash’s personal washroom was as bland and white as the rest of his office. Tsedi felt a nasty note in his guts. The man was such an utter frill fish that he couldn’t stand competition from anything, even his furniture.

Still, the violent pounding the Governor had laid into him with had given Tsedi a welcome boost of energy. Letting the steam vent open he focused a tiny bit of power along his fingers. The power could shield or it could rend. In this case, it sliced as fine as any monomolecular blade through the edge of the sink, right beneath the base of a grotesquely baroque figurine holding a bowl of cleaning mud. From the compact, he slid open a hidden panel and retrieved the tiniest glittering insect. 

In the corner of his vision, the bug’s telemetry kicked on and he chose the appropriate behavior pattern. Satisfied, he let it skitter into the tiny gap he’d created for it, and finished cleaning himself with a wince.

No amount of concealer was going to hide the expanding bruises for very long, he thought, prodding at the one on his throat that Silash had worsened. He hated wasting power to overclock his body’s healing, but he wasn’t going to be able to take much more abuse without ending up completely incapacitated. With a mutter, he reached inward and caught the flickering butterfly of sexual energy and turned it in on himself. It would still take a few hours, but at least now he wouldn’t collapse.

He exited the washroom to see Silash engrossed in a video report. Riots from the Hexen seperatists. Tsedi noted the avaricious light in his beady eyes and gathered his clothes without comment.

The secretary’s mandibles clicked as she watched Tsedi exit, naked, and dress in front of her desk. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “He was hard on Nerrim too.”

Tsedi gingerly pulled on his top, then looked at her, letting his surprise show for once. “What do you mean?”

“He would call Nerrim in at all times for… business. The cleaning staff was getting upset at having to come up here so much.” Her pink furred fingers wove a nervous pattern. 

“When was the last time you saw him?” Tsedi let his voice soften and his posture sink down with a little sway. A younger member of an exilioshi nest would adopt the posture when asking for a favor from a higher ranking member. The movement was so subtle that Yrim didn’t consciously register it, but her own body leaned protectively towards him.

“Three days ago, standard Imperium time. He would always ask me how my nestlings were. He didn’t this time, just stormed in before I could stop him.”

Tsedi held his emotions and let his head drop with another sway. “Thank you, Yrim. Next time I come, I would love to see ims of your little ones.”

She clicked her mandibles brightly and stroked his hair. “I would like that, Courtesan Mys.”

Out in the corridor, he brushed his hand over his jaw to wake up his comm, whispering for Valosh. (Dead fucking light. Three days? Troc hasn’t seen him in weeks!) “Valosh, we’ve got a problem.”

The Armiger was in his ear when Hzzreks rounded the corner, eyes soft and blue. “Tsedi!”

[Slimy mudfish balls, it’s like he’s psychic.] Valosh muttered. [You want some privacy?]

Tsedi just sighed twitched a smile into place. “I thought you had work to do.”

“I wanted to make sure you were ok,” Hzzreks’ eyes shaded purple, red glinting at the edges. “Dead light, did he try to kill you?”

“What? No.” Tsedi answered too quickly, realizing with a start that Hzzreks could see the shift in heat patterns on his throat and side where he was injured. Which meant he could see them when Tsedi had walked into the office earlier. He cursed himself inwardly for missing that. He always had a blind spot where Hzzreks was concerned. “I had a run-in with a rude imperiati after you left. Don’t worry, Valosh saved me.”

That wasn’t a lie in the least.

“The Governor just…” Tsedi added while he rubbed his throat. “Hit some sore spots.”

“I’m going to make a festive tutu out of Valosh’s asshole for letting you get hurt,” Hzzreks grunted.

[Hey, I heard that!]

Tsedi linked his arm with Hzzreks and marched him towards the lift. “Hzzra, you are not going to make a tutu out of any part of Valosh’s body.”

[Thank you for defending me, giwif.] Valosh sniffed dramatically.

“Only if I can see you home safely, and take you to dinner later. Promise me you won’t get into any more trouble?” Hzzreks gently slid his massive claws around Tsedi’s waist as they entered the lift.

Tsedi could hear the delighted click of Yrim’s mandibles as the lift gate closed. “You know I can’t say no to you,” he sighed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsedi gives Valosh shit, and grapples with his feelings vis a vis "the most uptight slab of chitin and meat by-product Thrang has ever produced"

Admittedly, Tsedi had expected “Take you to dinner” to mean “lets go back to your apartment and finish ruining the rental furniture.”

When the big Hexen had left him in the lobby, a chaste brush of armoured lips across his cheek, Tsedi Mys, Chevalier of the First Flower, found himself in a daze.

It hadn’t worn off entirely as he pawed through the closet filled with human-courtesan garments. “Val, can you make an excuse to get over to the Governor’s tower?” He examined and discarded every single one of them. “I’d like eyes on the physical while the bug does the datamine.”

He pulled a fine sweater of sun blossom-yellow exilioshi silk out of his own bag and pulled it on. It was loose and soft and his battered body relaxed a bit in the cocoon of it as he fished in the closet for a set of boots that wasn’t teetering heels. 

[Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s adorable you’re letting tall, dark and spiky take you to dinner, but don’t you think you’re going a little off-mission?] Valosh’s voice sounded a little strained in his ear. 

Tsedi scowled at his reflection in the mirror as he cleaned off the remainder of his eyeliner. “Valosh, that is the voice of someone who has just gotten a jackhammer up the ass.’ He leaned his hands on the sink, a sly smile creeping on his face as he heard Valosh grunt. He could almost see how his partner’s snout must be turning crimson. “You left your mic on earlier.”

[I am keeping a suspect close at hand.] the Armiger sniffed indignantly. 

Tsedi sobered a bit, then pulled his hair back into a ponytail. “Yeah. Me too.”

Valosh sputtered. [Wait, wait. You don’t trust Hzzreks? The most upright, tight-assed lawful good slab of chitin and meat by-product this asshole of a planet has ever produced? The future father of my multitudinous army of godchildren?]

Tsedi tapped the rider implanted under his skin and the feed from the bug slid into a corner of his vision. “I’m…just. I’m just saying that Hzzra is… good at his job. If there are more courtesans missing other than Nerrim, if there’s something shady going on with the Governor… I find it hard to believe he doesn’t know more than he was saying earlier.”

[You were also extremely distracted by his three-headed…]

“Don’t start.” Tsedi cut him off. “If you can tear yourself away from your intimate surveillance of Troc, I want you at the tower. I’ll be monitoring the feed remotely.”

[Fine.] Valosh snorted. [Listen. If you really do think Hzzreks is somehow involved, be careful. You get stupid around him and you’re still not up to full capacity after Troc’s beatdown.]

“You’re not my mom,” Tsedi chided him fondly. “For starters, you've never sold me for drug money.”

[Worse, I’m your Armiger. And yes, I’ll monitor the Governor’s tower. Go make sure I’m still gonna have godchildren.]

Tsedi was still mulling over what prompted him to blurt out suspicions about Hzzreks as he made his way down. Archstone’s shield showed the lurid brown-red of a Thrang sunset through the faintly shimmering barrier, the constant glow of Uptown’s towers blotted out by the unsettling sky.

Watching the other residents of the block confirmed they were all tourists or temporary residents. Thrang was a dense block of overheated, fart-scented rock with a gravity that well exceeded that of Mesxilios or Heriox. Even though the orbitals balanced the gravity a bit, it was still much more than most were used to. 

Tsedi sprawled his legs out on a bench, cautiously wasting a bit more of his banked power to force his ribs to heal faster. A sling of exilioshi tourists slogged past, listening to an imperiati tour guide rattle on about the historic treaty that ensured Thrang’s place in the glorious Imperium.

He had learned politics and history as facts to make conversation about, not to actually analyze. Tapping one heel on the bench, he muttered a voice memo to himself to read up on it. 

“They say talking to yourself out loud is the mark of a cluttered mind,” Hzzra rumbled over him. The Hexen had changed from his uniform to a scant collection of draped fabric panels. It was a common enough style among orbital and off-worlders. The ones who lived planetside on Thrang rarely wore anything at all, preferring to decorate their armored plates instead. Tsedi’s libido rose for a moment, and he tamped it down, reminding himself that Thrang’s atmosphere and surface temperature would kill him, and no amount of naked Hexen was worth that.

“If I have a cluttered mind, it’s because of you.” Tsedi let Hzzra scoop him up and set him on his feet. Hzzreks’ claws lingered about his waist and Tsedi leaned into him, running one of the strips of fabric between his fingers. “I haven’t tried the takeout here yet but…”

“Nope.” Hzzra unceremoniously threw Tsedi over his shoulder. Nearby, the exiloshi squealed and started taking pictures. 

Tsedi buried his face against Hzzreks’ shoulder to hide it, cursing. “Dead light, Hzzra!”

“You promised I could take you to dinner, that implies going outside.” He patted Tsedi’s rear as he marched them both back to the car. “Allow me to be *your* courtesan tonight. I’m going to ply you with the best food in Archstone, make absolutely witty jokes, and tantalize you with my devastating good looks!”

Tsedi sagged, dead weight. “I’m a poor government employee! I can’t afford you!”

Hzzra deposited him into the passenger seat and kissed him, the hard shape of his lips sending a shiver down Tsedi’s back. “For you, Tsedi Mys, I have a special discount.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tsedi and Hzzreks eat Outer Space Corn Dogs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters next week!

“You know,” Tsedi mused as he regarded the deep-fried monstrosity on a stick. “Absolutely none of my expectations for tonight have been met.” He settled on Hzzreks’ lap, against the massive span of the Hexen’s chest and took a bite. 

Below them, Thrang’s fire plains burned luminescent blue, lurid green geysers spouting up into the thick air. Archstone’s Central Park had a viewing pond, surrounded by benches and food trucks, where workers and tourists alike could take a break, and watch the world beneath them.

“Oh, my love, I too am a poor government employee,” Hzzreks said as he chewed. “Besides, I thought you liked traditional human food.”

“I kind of feel that deep fried, cheese stuffed Mesxiloshi pine wasp gall on a stick aren’t specifically human, but thank you.” Tsedi intoned around a mouthful of spice and cheese. 

[Dead light, he treated you to gall dogs and you’re not getting me any? You don’t love me anymore.] Valosh grouched in the bones of Tsedi’s ear.

In the corner of his vision, the feed from the bug scrolled on and a microscopic muscle twitch switched it to a video feed. He let it run autonomously, finding a minuscule gap in the Governor’s mirrored wall, and scurry into an alcove chock full of surveillance gear. He let the feed slip into background mode as it began the hack.

Oblivious, Hzzreks ran his hand along Tsedi’s waist. “I heard once that humans would deep fry anything. My fourth mother’s cousin claims he heard someone bet a human they couldn’t deep fry a needlespike and then eat it.”

“And then they ate it and their intestines were teleported to Ioa. Yeah, yeah, tell me another meme,” Tesdi snorted. He curled against Hzzreks’ shoulder and looked down at the plains. He could remember sneaking to the park as a child to stare down at a world he could never touch.

Not a single plant or animal in the park was even remotely native to the planet spinning below them and Tsedi chewed thoughtfully. “This must be weird. I remember you telling me that your people say the plains were their birthplace. And now it ’s an… attraction.” All around the pond, tourists of every species took photos. A sling of exiloshi here, an extended family of humans near the imperial treaty fountain, even a solitary Io, its metal body arched towards the surface of the water to peer down.

Hzzreks shrugged, but the motion was a slow, resigned roll of his plated shoulders more than dismissive. Then he buried his sharp face against Tsedi’s hair. “Upside, I get to show it to _you_.”

“You are a big, dumb romantic, you know that? Remind me again why I agreed to this?”

An elderly human woman pushing a cart of frost jellies squeaked towards them, chatting pleasantly as she gave pops to children and adults alike. Hzzreks brushed his hard lips against Tsedi’s ear and stood up. “Because you’re a big, dumb romantic too.”

He held Tsedi, letting his feet dangle a foot off the ground before setting him down. “You want an ice? I think I can afford a lavish dessert for my favourite courtesan.”

“Pulling out all the stops, Chief?” Tsedi purred, then turned his attention to the frost seller’s menu.

The old woman gave Tsedi a silent, withering look. She didn’t say anything , simply regarding him with a sneer. It took him a moment, but then he saw the shape of his own eyes and the cut of his own jaw beneath years of neglect and abuse on her own. Her hair had been black the last time Tsedi had seen her, not the patchy grey peeking out from beneath her jaunty cap.

His stomach felt sick, the heavy meal sitting unpleasantly there. He forced his expression to be perfectly still but he lifted his chin in challenge to her.

He braced himself for a comment, an invective. Something, as Hzzreks purchased two frosts. But she smiled, false and genial at the Hexen. At Hzzreks back, she curled her lip in disgust and mouthed a single word at him before squeaking away, calling out her icy treats.

 _Whore_.

Dead light, he fucking HATED coming back to Thrang.

“You two know each other?” Hzzrek’s voice startled him and Tsedi took his frost, quickly shaking his head. 

“Not really. I... ran into her the last time I was on Thrang. I don’t think she likes me very much.” Tsedi refused to elaborate, shoving some cold jelly into his mouth. An alert in the corner of his eye brought up the feed from the bug. Video of Nerrim, his orange fur stark in the Governor’s tacky white sanctuary. There was no audio file, but the body language was enough to fill him with concern.

Hzzreks was going on about something that Tsedi was only half-listening to, watching with increasing unhappiness whatever argument had occurred between the two.

The feed cut in a sudden burst of noise, and Tsedi staggered back. Hzzreks caught him as the jelly slipped from his hand. It took Tsedi a moment to process, his guts twisting as it sank in: it was a *scream*

 _Valosh_. (Oh, no, no, Gihus, no.)

His first reaction was to trigger his rider, grab a dedicated imperiati needlespace jump and blow his cover completely. Hzzreks was holding him, eyes indigo with concern. “Tsedi?!”

No matter what he did, his cover was not going to survive, Tsedi realised in horror. He did the math instantaneously in his head and every possibility looked the same.

“Hzzra, I have to get back to the governor’s tower right now,” he croaked after a moment. His fingers danced along the rider beneath his skin “Valosh is in danger.”


	16. Bonus Fic: Paint Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a tumblr prompt request!
> 
> Hzzreks enjoys arts and crafts.

“You know...” Tsedi arched his back, humming as he folded the last of his orgasm into a reserve of power. “I’m just a humble courtesan. I don’t have the operating budget to keep replacing rental furniture.”

He cracked one eye open to look at the massive hexen beneath him. Hzzra’s eyes gleamed a violet pink. The chitinous plates of his great, horned head didn’t allow much for the sort of expression a human or imperiati could produce (or even an exiloshi some days) but the rainbow shift of his eyes was as clear as any self-satisfied smirk.

“Got it. I must’ve misunderstood when you said ‘fuck the armoire, just do it’,” the hexen made a sound like basalt grinding together, a laugh. His eyes shifted to a more thoughtful blue and with a gentleness his size wouldn’t have indicated, he rolled them over and carefully disengaged. “Wait right here. I want to paint you.”

Tsedi propped himself up on his elbows with a scowl. “Please don’t tell me you started another distance-learning art course. You had more than the normal amount macrame ducks any one person should ever own, back on Mesxilos.”

“I still have them. I’ll get them out of storage before you come over.” Hzzra shouted from the kitchen where his uniform lay scattered. “Ah! Here we go!”

He returned with a sleek tin in his claws. “Now, sit still.”

Tsedi watched, curious, as Hzzra popped the tin open. Inside were pans of pressed pigment, glittering and iridescent, or velvet dark. Tsedi could smell the mild radiation from some of them, and he cocked an eyebrow. “Are those...?”

Hzzra’s eyes gleamed violet as he dipped one claw into a colour that was green and pink and black all at once. He traced a single calligraphic line down Tsedi’s breastbone. “May I?”

Tsedi lay back, stretching out on the half-ruined bed with a grin. There would be time to beat himself up later for falling back into the soft trap of Hzzra’s heart. “Go ahead. Paint me.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valosh is in trouble and Tsedi would rather yeet himself off a roof then face his feelings about Hzzra

Amusement and confusion kaleidoscoped across Hzzreks’ eyes before shifting to a dark, dark blue.   
“You’re serious? You’re… serious.”

Tsedi fought his face, unable to hide the screaming concern for Valosh or the ugly knot threatening to break through his heart. This was why Maetror had always cautioned them about becoming too attached. He was too attached to Valosh, let alone…

“Serious as the dead sun,” Tsedi choked out, finding the dedicated Imperium Needlefeed in the corner of his vision. “I’m sorry, Hzzra. I’m… I’m sorry.” He signaled a lock on the feed and linked the jump to one on the Governor’s Tower roof.

Just as the needlejump activated, at the last moment, Hzzreks’ massive arm circled Tsedi’s waist and they vanished together.

The rider was calibrated for solo action and the sudden shift in mass threw them both across the roof in a stomach churning tumble. Hzzreks slammed into a ventilation unit as Tsedi rolled to his feet, ribs screaming. He did his best to compartmentalise the pain and the wrenching vertigo, ignoring the pathetic contrabass sounds of Hexen vomiting as he stumbled to the edge of the roof.

Valosh’s comm was dead, and Tsedi threw imperius-level security codes at every camera in a five klick radius, trying to get an idea of what happened. Nothing but dead tech or glitching feeds. “DEAD LIGHT!” Tsedi slammed his hands down on the railing.

“Tsedi, what the hell…” Hzzreks grabbed at him and Tsedi wheeled, catching his throat before he could complete the motion. The two were perfectly still in Thrang’s lurid orange night.

Tsedi’s fingers were wedged perfectly between two chitinous plates on the hexen’s throat. The very first way he had learned to kill one of them, set in a room full of condemned criminals, each given the option for pardon if they destroyed one tiny human. He could feel the sluggish lava-pulse of Hzzreks’ blood beneath his fingers. It would be comically easy to rip out the veins beneath, paint the tiled roof with thick acidic blood.

Hzzreks’ eyes stayed a calm, deep blue. “Tsedi. Who are you, really?”

“Hzzra, please.”

“Tsedi.” He insisted.

Tsedi swallowed the lump in his throat. “Know me as Tsedi Mys, Chevalier of the First Flower and guardian of Heriox.” He couldn’t stop the waver in his voice. A Knight of the Garden only revealed themselves to their targets at death. “In the name of Cairan XII Grand Imperius and Glorious Father to All…” he let go of Hzzreks throat and quickly stepped back towards the edge of the roof.

Hzzreks’ eyes flickered red, gold but settled in the rising emerald of growing panic. “Tsedi, wait, you…”

“Forget you ever loved me.” Tsedi said as he took one last step back off the edge.

Eyes huge and terrified green, Hzzreks made one desperate lunge for him, and Tsedi righted himself in midair as much to not look at the terror on his face as to make his landing. Another chip of power wasted as he hit the plaza below hard enough to shatter the expensive stone and scatter a throng of late night workers and he was off. Nearby, a throng of Hexen protestors with their ochre-stained horns were squaring off with Imperium Peacekeepers and all of them were shocked into momentary silence by the sudden human dropping out of the sky.

One big imperiati grabbed at him, and Tsedi in turn scaled her bulk like a tree’at , and springing from her shoulders onto an overhead walkway as the Peacekeepers shouted. The comms showed Valosh’s last position and he sprinted at it, the bug in the Governor’s office still obliviously scrolling data into his back brain.

There were clear signs of a struggle, he noted, still aware of the Peacekeepers coming after him. As fast as he could he tapped out a code into his rider. The comm might have been dead, but he cold track the power source through the city’s Needlespace. (Coming, Gihus, promise)

The map view resolved into his vision just as a hand as big as his head and hard as stone covered his face. Tsedi kicked as his attacker lifted him off the ground, and clawed at it, trying to at least get a sense of who was attached to it. The cold sting of an injector against his throat flooded his senses with painful static and then.

Darkness.


	18. INTERLUDE: YOUR GUIDE TO THE HERIOX IMPERIUM, PART 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Heriox Imperium Department of Intrasystem Harmony has heard your pleas and is pleased to present this first installment of a Guide to the Heriox Imperium.
> 
> *presented by the Heriox Imperium Department of Intrasystem Harmony in conjunction with the System Morale Corps

**Presented by the Heriox Imperium Department of Public Affairs and Intrasystem Harmony**

**Part One: The planets and species within the Living Light and the Heriox Imperium**

_Greetings Future Citizens!_

Millennia ago, a crumbling human “Generation” ship stumbled into the Living Light and thus ended centuries of debate regarding the existence of life outside of our precious system. Grateful in the face of the Imperium’s warm generosity, the humans became a vital part of the interlinked systems of the Living Light.

To these travelers in their ruined ship (remains of which are now housed in orbit around Mesxilios as part of the First Contact exhibition), the Living Light was known as the Kepler-62 system. For the sake of any future travelers who may have similar designations to our glorious worlds, we will indicate them in parallel.

Compared to the robust species of the Living Light, humans are small, soft and seemingly frail. But their delicate appearance belies their hardy adaptability and today they may be found throughout the system as integrated members of our society. Their fragile beauty and exotic foodstuffs make them especially popular though, in our courtesan and system morale employment sectors!

The humans first made contact with the world they called Kepler-62F, but which we know correctly as Mesxilios. Mesxilios is a twilight world of misty beauty. Cold by Heriox standards, it boasts towering forests and iridescent mesas. The seas are green and full of life. While the Exilioshi have their ancestral homes in the web-woven cities of the Great Forests, Mesxilios is also home to many vibrant Imperium centers at Dust Mesa and Caldera. Most humans now hail from these great cities.

The native sentients to Mesxilios are the Exilioshi – four-armed, brightly furred and possessed of multiple eyes. They are sensitive and diligent, as well as quite beautiful! Their natures mean you will find many Exilioshi in administrative positions across the Imperium, and their attractiveness makes them staples among the courtesan class!

When the humans arrived, they called them “the Spiders” after a much smaller creature from their lost homeworld. Some human subgroups had colourful ancestor stories about Spider Gods which endeared* them to the Exilioshi.

> _*Since the treaty of welcoming, it has been illegal to hunt and/or eat humans without their consent._

The jewel of the Living Light is Heriox. Known to the humans as 62-E (such a crude name for a glorious world), Heriox is the Capital of the Imperium, home to the Grand Imperius Glorious Father to All Cairan XII. It is a world of tropical flowers, of sapphire seas and vast emerald mudflats and shoals.

Our glittering Floating Cities dot the oceans, and the system’s governments, financial institutions and great colleges can all be found here, as well as the pulse of fashion and entertainment! For a list of tourism-open cities, please consult your appendix.

The native sentients of Heriox are the Imperiati. Once, before the great rise of the Imperium, they called themselves the Heroxai. But as the first species to truly master the Needles and become the Dominant Culture of the Living Light, they have truly earned their name.

You will recognise an imperiati by their thick, pearly skin, gloriously thick bodies and often magnificent tusks. Humans on generally stand at about ½-¾ average imperiati size, coming in smaller than any other species in the Living Light. You will find Imperiati in almost every aspect of society, but make sure to salute when you see a brave troop of Peacekeepers!

Thrang, known to the humans as 62D, is a hot, suffocating world that is home to the Hexen. Covered in a thick, orange atmosphere and boasting a gravity many times that of Heriox, the surface is uninhabitable by any species other than the hexen.

However, Imperium technology has made exciting sky cities, like Port Archstone, allowing for the broadest range of citizens to make their home and work for the mining companies that eagerly share the buried mineral riches of Thrang with the rest of the system!

The hexen are unique among Imperium citizens in that they can adapt themselves to virtually any environment, moving from the sulfur-rich atmosphere of Thrang, to the oxygen-based one of Heriox and Mesxilios, to ones even more exotic or dangerous- making them the citizens best suited for rescue work or employment in hazardous locales! Hexen are easily recognizable in any crowd. Covered in dark, iridescent chitin, and boasting up to three sets of horns, hexen tower over even Imperiati. They communicate largely through the colour of their luminescent eyes, so be sure to keep a guide handy when you visit Thrang!*

> _*please note areas in your guide that are considered unsafe to visit in any circumstances to do unpredictable outbreaks of political dissention from Hexen extremists!_

Ioa, known to the humans as 62C is even more inhospitable than Thrang to the casual visitor. A rocky world with no atmosphere to speak of, Ioa is still populated by a native sentient species! The Io are a mechanical species of brass and crystal who predate the Imperium itself! While they do not maintain a history of any sort that we know of, the Io are recognised as caretakers of the Needles and move freely throughout the system.

Their relationship to the Imperium is unique in that they are not citizens, but are recognised as a vital part of the Living Light. There is one city the Io have allowed on their world for trade and communication. Travelers are advised to approach Io with caution, as there are no Peacekeepers to protect you.

The final world in our system is known as Taix. Taix is closest to the Living Light and a world of molten metal. The Io are known to travel there, and it is the heart of the great Needle system that connects our worlds and makes the Imperium as we know it possible!

We hope, travelers, that you become valued citizens of the Imperium as well!

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of those things that started off as fanfic, then kind of went off on it's own.


End file.
